According to studio estimates Sunday, Lionsgate's "Mockingjay" opened well below the $158 million debut of last year's "Hunger Games: Catching Fire." But the decision to split the final book in Suzanne Collins' dystopian trilogy into two films clearly paid off. "Mockingjay" did even better overseas, where it made $152 million.

The Disney animated adventure "Big Hero 6" moved into second place with $20. 1 million. Christopher Nolan's space epic "Interstellar" came in third with $15.1 million.

Last week's top film, the long-in-coming sequel "Dumb and Dumber To," slid all the way to fourth place with $13.8 million.